Mishcka O'Connor was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the mid-west, Minnesota and Ohio. She lived on the east coast, Boston and New York City and then moved to New England, Vermont and New Hampshire. She now resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Mishcka developed a passion for art at an early age and decided she would be an artist. She studied art at various schools, including Ohio University and The Art Student's League in NYC. In those early years there were also some major influences: one was studying with the late Leon Kroll at the National Academy of Design in NYC; another, studying with Isabel Hall at Quarry Hill Creative Art Center in Vermont. Most recently studying with Josh Goldberg, an abstract artist and teacher in Tucson, Arizona - a transformative experience.

Through the years Mishcka has worked in pastel, oil, acrylic, mixed media and stained glass. She originally painted in oil, but then for twenty years was a pastel painter - her style realism and surrealism. She says a change in her perception of color came when she worked in hand blown glass. That moved her painting to another level. Later during some years of doing mixed media her style became more expressionistic, but now she is painting abstracts, mostly in acrylic.